North Carolina BBQ Trail: Eastern vs. Western (Lexington) style

That is beautiful. We hopped up to North Carolina and we have quite a delicious adventure lined up for today. So a couple months ago we heard about something called the North Carolina barbecue trail. It's basically this route that goes across the state of North Carolina with 21 barbecue stops and if you guys know anything about us you know we love barbecue. We even named our van brisket so obviously we had to go do it. However there will be no brisket today because North Carolina barbecue is all about the pork and there are two different styles of North Carolina barbecue. There's eastern style and then there's western style which is also called Lexington style which we'll share a bit more about later. And today we're gonna try two different spots one from each style. We would try all 21 but it might get a little expensive. I don't know if we can fit all that in one day but I'd be willing to try. The only problem is both spots are closed on Sundays and they're three hours apart. So we're going on a little road trip. For our first stop we're in Aiden, North Carolina at a little place called Skylight Inn Barbecue known to the locals as Pete Jones barbecue. And this spot has been around since 1947. That's a long time. In the 1970s National Geographic named it the capital of barbecue which is why there's this little capitol dome on the top of it. So we just ordered they're so nice in there I was they saw me filming they're like hey check out that camera and I was filming the guy chopping up the meat and he was like hey you can go in the back if you want to get a better shot so went back in the kitchen and he's chopping it up and they add the pork rinds in with it so cool. So eastern style barbecue is what they call whole hogs. They're using the entire part of the pig they're not just using the shoulder or the butt they're using the whole thing and they joke that they use everything except the squeal which is kind of a funny and gross way to say it. They also have a vinegar based barbecue sauce so this sauce is super liquidy looking and it's basically just vinegar with some spices so you can see like flecks of like maybe like a red pepper some normal pepper and it's just there's tons of like red pepper flakes at the bottom of it and it's just very very liquidy and I'm not a huge vinegar fan so I'm very curious to see if I like it. So there's three sizes you can choose from small medium large we of course you know got the large but it comes with a big slice of cornbread that they make and then their coleslaw as well and they have a couple other sides that you can choose from too. I'm excited for this that's really good got a little crunchy bit in there but it's soft and really salty and just really good pork. So we've had a lot of pulled pork before we've had pork barbecue before but we've never really had like official at least to our knowledge North Carolina style barbecue oh I think I see like oh yeah like a skin bit oh I want some of that oh that's thick and crunchy looking That is really good pork it is so soft and tender and having all the different cuts of the pork in there just gives it a lot of different flavor and it's a lot of different types of meat working together and it's really good I'm gonna try it with the sauce too. That sauce is really good it's not too vinegary and it just works super well with the pork it kind of just adds a little bit of a tang to it it's awesome I wasn't sure how I'd feel. Kind of cuts some of the fat a little bit huh the tanginess. I'm really excited for this cornbread too I'm used to like a thicker cornbread like a muffin this looks like it was just in a sheet pan and it's thin and it looks a little doughy. I heard a little crunch when you got into that. Oh yeah it's crunchy that's good I got a little taste of the coleslaw sweet I think. You want to try it with me? Not really a coleslaw fan but I figured I gotta try it. When in Aden. It's kind of sweet. No I'm definitely not gonna be able to eat that whole boat. It's actually pretty good. You think so? I kind of like the sweetness of it it's it's a good combo again. Yeah it's sweet and crunchy and juicy yeah it's not bad like I said a second ago I just love how there's different parts of the pig in here because it just gives you different textures and it just makes it I think just more interesting and fun to eat. It's different flavors too because you get some of the leaner bits and then you get some of the fattier bits and it's just a crunchy bits yeah it's a good combo. I don't know how the spot later is going to beat this place like the pork was just so soft and tender and just having the skin in there with that crunch like I don't think we'll tell you more about what the other style is later but I don't think that style could beat this style with having the skin in it so I don't know well yeah we'll see I'm I hope it proves me wrong I hope they're both amazing. We went back in to say thanks and just talking to the guy you kind of get a little sense of their little rivalry they have because they we told them we're gonna go try a Lexington style and the guy was like so it's making us more excited I think to try it it's like when someone tells you like don't touch the thing then you want to touch the thing so we'll see what happens. It's also way cheaper than what we're used to at Texas Barbecue. We're used to paying like twenty dollars for a pound of brisket we spent like 16 bucks for two larges which came with sides so this is a deal pork is definitely a lot cheaper. And now we're off to Lexington, North Carolina. Quick pit stop in Raleigh which is about halfway to our next destination to let Kona run around play like a wild dog. Having the best of times out there. And to get us some much-needed caffeine. So we made a stop off at Jubala Coffee we just got a plain coffee which I'm not gonna try right now because it's scalding my hand just holding it I'm sure it's great though. And then we got this maple cream coffee and I had to take a photo of the menu because it's very unique so it's a hot coffee, maple rosemary syrup, angostura I don't know what that is, bitters, and shaken cream. Sounds delicious and just as soon as we saw it we were like oh yeah super unique I've never heard of anything like this I've never heard of some of the ingredients so hopefully it'll be good it's probably too hot to try so we'll update you later. Update it's really good it's super sweet I kind of taste the rosemary but I don't taste those bitters but it tastes more like a latte it's actually just coffee according to the menu it said coffee not espresso so but it's a really creamy drink it's creamy like a latte but it's not an actual latte. Back on the road. A few hours later on the road we made it to Lexington, North Carolina at Lexington BBQ. This spot is also known as The Monk or The Honey Monk by locals it was started by a guy named Wayne Monk in 1962 so I guess that's where the nickname came from. Let's eat. Deck in place today let's let us come inside here's our firebox oh my gosh cool oh yeah all the cardboard does is keeps the ash off the shoulder when you fire them takes eight to ten hours to cook a run of barbecue whoa you start them out on the face side like this right here and then you flip them over on the skin side yeah do the remainder of the takes eight to ten hours and when you flip them back over the grease that's caught in the skin seats back to it helps tenderize yeah yeah all right and where you get the flavor come when you spread your coals out underneath the fat turns into grease and it drops down on the coal is beautiful so as the name implies Lexington BBQ is the Lexington style of barbecue in North Carolina also known as the western style and the big difference between Lexington style and the eastern style we had earlier is that instead of using the whole hog like the place earlier did they only use the pork shoulder here so they're just using that one part of the pig and another big difference is the sauce so both sauces have a vinegar base but the difference is that this one also has ketchup or like a tomato sauce in it so it's a little bit darker and it's a little bit thicker looking it still looks pretty runny but it's definitely a little thicker than the one we had earlier so we got two different types of plates it's the same plate but they chop it differently so this one is a coarsely chopped so it's bigger chunks and then this one is a more finely chopped they chop it up more but the guy in the back when we were on our little 25 cent tour is what he called it he told us to make sure to order it soft brown which i think is more of the the outer layer of it i think and then we also got a basket of hush puppies which is basically fried little corn balls they're crunchy oh i guess this is their take on like cornbread so they get fried cornbread another difference is they call this the red slaw so it's chopped the same it looks but they add some of the sauce to it i guess i'm ready so i'm trying the coarse one first and it's definitely like big chunks of meat and it's kind of like falling apart really easily so that's always a good sign when it comes to pork super soft and tender it just falls apart it has like it's not the fattiest piece of meat i'd say the one we had earlier felt fattier to me but it's still really soft and tender and there's a little bit of like the one piece i had it had some fattier parts and some leaner parts to it it's really good but i want to try it with the sauce sauce i don't know what the sauce smells like to me it smells very vinegary but it also smells a little bit it smells different than the one earlier but not necessarily ketchupy i'm not really sure i'm not sure if i love the smell of it to be honest so we'll see if i like it it's way less tangy than the one earlier it's definitely sweeter than the one earlier for sure this one maybe because it's chopped more but it has more it's i don't you said that one was soft but this is really soft and it's i don't know it's just really good it's kind of little sweet i think it does have some sauce in it because i can see some little flecks in there but it's really good all right i'll be honest i wasn't a huge fan with other slaw so let's see how i like this one it's tangy the one earlier no the one was really sweet this one's tangy it's really good though i like this one better for sure this looks good i think they're gonna be real crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside i've had hush puppies before like seafood restaurants but they've always been like balls these are kind of more nuggety they're really good super crunchy good corn flavor that nice crunch so we've officially tried both styles of north carolina barbecue and we have some thoughts so first of all the we're going to talk about the environment of each one so the actual place not the style yeah so skylight inn is more kind of our style you walk in order at the counter you can sit wherever you like they had some outdoor seating which is as you saw that's where we chose to sit and then lexington barbecue is more like a typical restaurant you walk in they seat you you can kind of have your pick whatever's available obviously but and then you order through a waitress and then you pay at the counter so yeah and one thing we really liked about skylight inn is that you could see them chopping up yeah so we so we got the backstage experience at both which was amazing we didn't think anything could beat the skylight inn experience where they let him in the back yeah when he asked he was like hey you want to get a better shot i was like yeah i was like what but then we went to lexington and they like let us see even more of the process so that blew the other place out of the water but we like that as a regular customer without a camera getting i guess like special treatment yeah you get to see them actually chopping up the meat at skylight inn so they were both really cool but i think from like a normal person's perspective who doesn't get the behind the scenes look skylight inn wins yeah in terms of getting to see that and yeah and everybody was so nice at each place like the guy the person taking your order the cook everything yeah everyone's been so nice everywhere all day long so when it comes to the actual style i have a favorite i don't know adam's favorite i have a favorite okay yeah you can go first all right so they're both really good we'll say that because we don't want to upset anyone because we know people are very loyal to their and there's tons there's tons of different places to try obviously there's 21 probably even more in the little city so based on our two yeah so lexington versus east i'm gonna go with the east one me too yeah and i don't think it's any surprise because i raved about how much i loved having the skin on the east style but i just i found the eastern style with all the parts of the hog to be juicier and i just loved the crunch of the skin i thought the text the different textures was just so delicious yeah i like the choppiness of it you got the skin in there it's fattier it was a little juicier to me even though the chopped one for the lexington was also pretty juicy but i don't know i like it better it was just a tad better i love both so west slash lexington folks don't hate us we loved your barbecue too i will say though the sides on the lexington one for me were better the hush puppies and stuff yeah i couldn't really indulge in any of the sides that much i don't know i loved the cornbread at at the east one yeah cornbread was awesome because the sometimes most of the time you get your cornbread is like a cakey muffin this one was like a crispy crispy like so it was good but the hush puppies man i don't know it's hard to beat i give the edge to that even though love both and i like the slaw better at at lexington too so that's our opinion just based on our experience but we'd love to hear if any of you guys have done the north carolina barbecue trail let us know what your favorite spots are what your favorite style is we'll probably be back at some point and we love deep barbecue so i'm sure we'll eat more in the future so we'd love more recommendations i want to try more yeah man but what a delicious so much fun a lot of fun staring at who the girls next to us are staring nice always always have to do a teeth check yeah it was a lot of fun is that okay to end it yeah oh that's the end by the way